Postal Service to cut Saturday mail to trim costs

One fewer day of junk mail or a major lifestyle inconvenience?

Local residents’ reactions to news the U.S. Post Office no longer will deliver mail on Saturdays ranged from concern about how it would affect their bill payments to sympathy for the financially strapped institution.

Local residents’ reactions to news the U.S. Post Office no longer will deliver mail on Saturdays ranged from concern about how it would affect their bill payments to sympathy for the financially strapped institution.

“What if there is something important that I can’t receive,” Afnan Alhujazi of Utica wondered. “What if it’s not enough time to mail things out? It could affect my appointments. It’s not fair.”

Jessica Porter of Utica, however, does most of her mailings during the week.

“If it saves money, it’s a good thing,” Porter said. “Besides they deserve an extra day off. Nobody should have to work weekends.”

Under the new plan, which officials estimate would save about $2 billion:

ä Mail would be delivered to homes and businesses Mondays through Fridays beginning the week of Aug. 5.

ä Mail still would be delivered to post office boxes on Saturdays.

ä Packages would be delivered six days a week.

ä Post offices now open on Saturdays would remain open on Saturdays.

Postal Service market research and ancillary research indicated that nearly 7 in 10 Americans support the switch to five-day delivery as a way for the Postal Service to reduce costs, the agency said.

But the president of the National Association of Letter Carriers, Fredric Rolando, said the end of Saturday mail delivery is “a disastrous idea that would have a profoundly negative effect on the Postal Service and on millions of customers,” particularly businesses, rural communities, the elderly, the disabled and others who depend on Saturday delivery for commerce and communication.

The move accentuates one of the agency’s strong points — package delivery has increased by 14 percent since 2010, officials say, while the delivery of letters and other mail has declined with the increasing use of email and other Internet services.

Sam DiMambro of Utica doesn’t fall into that boat. He doesn’t own a computer, so he can’t email people or pay bills online.

Postmaster General and CEO Patrick R. Donahoe said the change would mean a combination of employee reassignment and attrition.

Local post office and union officials could not be reached Wednesday to find out how the move could affect jobs here.

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Over the past several years, the Postal Service has advocated shifting to a five-day delivery schedule for mail and packages — and it repeatedly but unsuccessfully appealed to Congress to approve the move.

“Our financial condition is urgent,” Donahoe said at a news conference Wednesday.

Though an independent agency, the postal service gets no tax dollars for its day-to-day operations but is subject to congressional control.

Congress has included a ban on five-day delivery in its appropriations bill. But because the federal government is now operating under a temporary spending measure, rather than an appropriations bill, Donahoe says it’s the agency’s interpretation that it can make the change itself.

The agency is essentially asking Congress not to reimpose the ban when the spending measure expires on March 27, and Donahoe said he would work with Congress on the issue.

The Postal Service is amid a major restructuring throughout its retail, delivery and mail processing operations. Since 2006, it has cut annual costs by about $15 billion, reduced the size of its career workforce by 193,000 or by 28 percent, and has consolidated more than 200 mail processing locations, officials say.